he’s the voiceover Studio engineer of the stars in Los Angeles California a Virginia Tech grad with a knowledge of
recording studios unmatched in his field he’s a voice actor from Buffalo New York
with 30 years experience in recording studios Sam behind the mic he solves people’s home voice over Studio problems
in the blink of an eye together there’s no Studio problem they can’t solve and they’ll do it for you tonight welcome to
East West audio body shop now live from a basement in Buffalo and an office in
La here are Dan Leonard and George Wham and good evening I’m Dan Leonard in
the East I’m George Wham in the west and together we are East West audio Body
Shop well what a week it’s been now I know you’ve had a busy week so why don’t
you tell us about all the stuff that you’ve been doing as far as you know all the the construction you’re doing of
course perhaps we should talk about who Our Guest is tonight too yeah let’s get that in yeah uh now we were supposed to
have Larry Davis even though you said we were gonna have Larry David on in our PR I saw that on the YouTube link I was
like well I thought maybe that would bring more viewers 11 viewers it worked people really do hate Larry David maybe
he would be in here maybe he wouldn’t uh no but Larry Larry Davis who’s who does some great voices was
going to be our guest tonight but fortunately he has the flu so uh we dug
deep to find the deepest in quality of backup guests and we got Peter Peter
O’Connell our good friend from actually here in Buffalo who has lots of lots of interesting sidelights in his voice over
business that he wants to talk about and just shoot the bull with us here on East West audio body shop so he’ll be joining
us in just a little while uh but I I’ve got some great stuff that went on this week
and what what have you been up to it sounds like you’ve had a major construction job I have um I had a
client who decided that we had a 3-we Time window to do a complete Studio construction job a total room in a room
build I mean just double double walls double ceilings air conditioning uh you
know everything everything you need for a studio in in three weeks yeah um so that pretty well you know had me going
and I was there yesterday installing I was there Friday installing acoustics Saturday installing all the equipment
about 3:30 fox called him and said we need you in a half hour and he was like oh my these guys call me like four times
a year on a Saturday has to be the day that I move the studio and uh we got it up and running just in time for him to
pull the session off and uh I even got a little validation directly from the fox
engineer saying that it sounded great so that felt pretty good um but go back on Monday to finish the Acoustics and uh
put the spit spit shine on the place but but it came out really well I I’ll have pictures up on uh the Google+ feed and
you know excellent pretty soon see that’s the fun part of your job you get it’s like having a baby you know you get
you get to you know I mean we’ve all experien well most of us have experienced it maybe you and I
personally haven’t experienced but we’ve seen it happen right uh but it’s like it’s it really is kind of nice to you
know to bring a project like that to fruition and to see it work really really well it is it really is I mean
it’s it’s the ultimate in you know I don’t I don’t have my own studio so
every every time I build one it’s like I get to build the studio I would have built if I had that money to do it if I
had the money in the space and and the need this is the studio I would build so I get to build one of those every couple of months and actually I’m building two
simultaneously but every couple of months I get something like that and it’s it’s so satisfying just to see the
client go wow this is really what I was hoping it hoping it would be and you know have everybody be excited thrill
thrilled and you know feel feeling validated after spending you know an ungodly amount of
money an ungodly amount of someone else’s money yeah not my money that’s
the part yeah that’s that’s always the fun part about this but believe me I don’t when when I design a studio it’s
to fit the need of the client so whether it’s you know a guy that does promo like
this fellow or you’re just getting started you know it doesn’t matter but if the client you have to work with at
the you have to work at the level that the client demands whatever that is that’s the most important thing anybody
knows about pricing a project or you should know pricing a product or a project is all about meeting the
expectation of the client if you’re way high or if you’re way low you will miss
the mark this is true important yeah that’s that might be a good topic for a discussion one of these weeks talking
about you know corvo has always talking my D good friend Dave quas is always talking about uh you know you know
proper pricing for your own work in the voiceover business you know anything goes but you everybody’s got their own
formula for doing it well I had a fascinating week what did you do Dan
well what happened remember you know last last Sunday uh you know when uh we
had James and and Penny on um I was going like this the whole night maybe people noticed that it was just a tad
itchy well come Monday morning it got a little bit worse and I tried benad drill
I tried zertek I tried cord a and it didn’t go away and then I remembered you
know right before the football game you know I’m devoted Bills fan even today
uh the uh you know last Sunday morning I felt something like it felt like
something was crawling up my neck and then going across the top of my head and it was itchy and then it sort of went
into my eyebrow so and and of course my wife goes off to Florida to visit her parents on on on Sunday and she’s going
to be gone for 5 days and then I’m sitting there eating breakfast and it suddenly strikes me because I used to
sell insurance and I used to know all sorts of medical stuff I’m like I wonder if it’s
shingles so I pick up the phone call my my good friend who’s a dermatologist and he yeah oh you think
you got shingles come on in and and he takes one look at it and he’s like yeah you’re right that’ll be 150 bucks well
you know I don’t care my insurance pays for that uh but he’s like because you figured out
what it was because you understood the progression of it you know of a retrovirus going down a you know down a
nerve a n nerve route obviously affected my my speaking ability yeah um uh
because you caught it early we can give you antiviral drugs and chances are it will not get even very bad at all you
know like classic shingles which is really nasty uh and uh and it’ll go away and
you won’t and and it won’t come back in most cases so I was kind of it’s time for another exciting episode of bad
audio of the week my my eye was I I’m telling my son
watch if my eye starts to droop you know if that happens you know let me know
because I won’t even be able to tell uh this thing is a weird weird virus anyway
but you know in the middle of the week you know it’s like you know I’ve got work to do I’m going to go take a nap and that
was pretty much the way the week went that’s that’s part of being self-employed right you can’t collect
unemployment you can’t go on sick Lea no and and I had a lot of work to do and I got it all done and you know so it was
it was pretty good and I had this amazing creative streak maybe it’s like you know after staring death you know
down the hall several times in the last couple of last couple of years I’m like wait I got a great idea so I had a lot
of creative output this week and I’m sure some of you will see it later on in the in the show uh so but I survived
that and you know everybody’s going God this is really dull conversation we’re glad you didn’t get
the serious form of shingles mainly so we didn’t have to hear the story but uh right because otherwise what You’ be
watching right now is is that exactly but no I’m here but we
we’ve got some other great stuff coming up tonight we’ve got a couple of great questions about whisper rooms and you
know whether you should stand or sit we also have a little feature tonight later on because people have inquiring how do
you do this show I mean what is the secret how do you make this look so good
when in reality we are using two cans in a string it’s it’s pretty impressive but anyway one of the questions we got this
week uh was about whisper rooms I can’t remember exactly what the question was
uh but everybody’s always talking about how a whisper room is the ultimate answer answer and uh is is you know
Peter oconnell is seeing here like whisper room in here it’s not it’s not happening right you know I I’m not a
believer in whisper rooms for home Studios unless you’re R Victor who had
posted a video this week about his double walled whisper room right um You
Know by ened one an enhanced Booth should I give him a little rundown about
the the kind of the differences why you spend more for one and the other as long as it’s interesting
okay well it all started with the need for a booth that no uh the reason that
they make two versions and one is much more expensive than the other I think it’s actually almost more than twice as
expensive I think it’s it’s a it’s it’s at least double because the the enhanced model is actually a booth in a booth so
you build the outer one and then they give you all another whole section of walls floors and everything and you
build another one inside the first one um so that’s why it’s that much more even the window and the door everything
is doubled um the amazing thing is even though it’s double the cost double the weight double the materials double
everything it does not have double the soundproofing and that’s just one of
those things like the law of diminishing returns you know it’s you can only you do so much with this much money and this
much effort then you can get to this stage then you can get to this stage then you can get to this St you know that’s how it goes and I I actually had
a you know a little slight tangent but I had to get in a conversation with my client just this past weekend because
his wife was expecting that you know after you spend all this money this thing should be you know the equivalent
of a bomb shelter or something that you know as though you’re 300 feet underground and I was like Saddam
Hussein would have felt sick I was like yeah no no no no I was like there there I you know maybe we didn’t meet your
expectations here but within the time limits and budgetary constraints of this project and building on the second story
of a building all these different factors we couldn’t do what you were expecting but we got about 90% of the
way there I think and once they saw that and understood it and kind of swallowed that it was okay but anyway same thing
with a whisper room you buy this thing it isn’t soundproof there’s nothing truly soundproof completely so the the
enhanced booth has the double wall it gives you like depending on what frequency range as you go down in the
lower frequency uh down in the lower mid-range and low base uh mid-base
frequencies which is where most of the voice is the double wall does a much better job at stopping a noise from
coming in which is that really critical range so if you’re in a really noisy part of town if you’re stuck in Los
Angeles New York City you’re off of a Major Boulevard and you really have to be able to work at any time day or n
night you don’t get to screw around yeah really that’s well that’s the reality
that’s the reality for a lot lot of people here in La then sometimes it’s necessary to go to that level uh
but my last I’ll let Dan take take over on his thoughts again but um the last thing about whisper room is it does have
a resale value so at least you know if you move or you do get to upgrade to a
custombuilt booth or you know you just get out of the business whatever um it
does have a resale value so you know you can turn around and sell this thing again whereas if you had something custom made from you know a doll boox
plans or something it’s a big pile of uh you know kindling and scrap wood when
you’re done it’s like building a set you know yeah yeah you know and and you’ve got to be handy I I talk to a lot of
people who are like my husband is building me a a whisper room like no he’s building you a room essentially you
know you know I you know I I know Peach draa built a really nice one and he used
excessive amounts of green glue which apparently was very successful I personally when it comes to whisper
rooms I I don’t believe in them uh now maybe that’s just my personal preference because because of how I’m located uh
yeah okay I am in the landing paned from the Buffalo airport but you know it’s they’re they’ve got their noise of
batement stuff on I really don’t notice basement I’m I’m below grade for those
of you in California got out here we take these shovels and we dig these big holes under our house and it’s like you
know I’m I’m somewhat below grade but I can still hear on the outside you the dog barking or you know if they’re
mowing the lawn this time of year you know leaf blowers and things like that um you’re you’re going to hear it but so
what I’ve tried to do down here is I’ve tried to get my noise floor down to at least minus 50 DB and I succeed at that
most of the you know most of the time you know unless somebody comes to the door and that both the dogs start barking for whatever reason um or or
somebody is mowing the lawn and even then it’s still pretty good uh but I still have an open area I find that
whisper rooms create the sound of you being in a whisper room and yeah and and
and that sound is is is something like this where you sound like you’re you know you’re you know you’re you’re in a
booth and there are ways to try and treat for that you know put in Bas everybody talks about oh put in bass
traps put in this put in that the answer is most of the time when somebody has too much of a problem with their whisper
room I say open the door right and that usually and and all the little base
frequencies just sort of float out and that’s the end of it and they’re like but then if you could open the door you
wouldn’t need a whisper room Bingo irony exactly but you you can build one
on your own you know it’s a lot of work you got to be very project oriented and
really you just want to car think about how it is that you uh you know how you
do your performance because the whisper room is it’s a crutch if you understand
how to record if you know how to keep your noise floor down initially uh you know you know dampening your
refrigerator making sure your furnace is off remembering to turn it back on when you’re done uh things along those lines
um there are ways to get rid of background noise and to if you get it below minus 50 no one’s going to notice
anyway so that’s that’s my that’s my take on on whisper room so whatever the
question was hopefully we answered it I’ve been in the chat room too while you’ve been blabbing on some of the
people saying here I the topic of Doll boox came up and I you know made a pointed comment of saying that they’re
you know a joke um that’s probably a little strong the doll you know saying that they’re a joke but I have had a lot
of people complain about those doll boox plans because they leave a lot of details out they give you the impression
of having a lot of detail and then when you get to that point where you have to make a precise cut or some kind of
precise you know something adjustment it it it’s like well you just sort of have to kind of figure it out yeah exactly as
Matt said so many details are left out so it it’s almost like to me it’s like e
if you’re not even if you’re going to sell the plans for cheap you got to make sure that they’re good because if
they’re not good you you might as well I don’t know you might as well not do it I mean you
know it’s you can just come down here into my basement I’ve had people ask me to make plans for them and like I’m like
do you have any idea how much time it would I would take me to to you know how much you’re going to charge him to do
those plans hundreds and hundreds of dollars because it’s going to take me hundreds hundreds man you charge you’re
cheap for for doing that kind of stuff well I mean you know it would be incredibly timec consuming to design
something that someone could build like they’re building uh you know something out of Legos put block here and insert
tab yeah that’s that’s Ikea furniture and if Ikea ever makes a whisper room or some kind of a ISO Booth then you got
something yeah exactly so yeah they they out of the box I feel they need quite a
bit of um Improvement for voice over uh they really do need acoustic treatment
so they are not the end all be all and if and I I talk a lot of people out of getting as many as many people as I talk
about buying one I talk others out of getting one uh because there’s so many situations where you you if you’re not
especially here’s here’s a really good delineation if you do all of your work self-directed
where you can stop and start you can work at any time day or night doesn’t matter you’re totally flexible that’s
one good reason why you don’t need a whisper room probably um because you have the time flexibility to work around
these kinds of interruptions but if you’re working on a really rigid schedule you’re called at certain times
a day you work with radio station Affiliates I don’t know whatever it is right that’s a different story but
hopefully you’re getting paid adequately enough to make it worth the investment at that point absolutely so all right
well we we’re we’re we’re rolling on here but this is a topic everybody likes to talk about we’ve got we’ve got
another question about about standing or sitting and uh and then the little thing about how do we actually do the show
here we’re going to get to that in just a couple of minutes also if you have a question for us of course you can write
to us at e webshop gmail.com we’d love to get your questions questions like
this about whisper rooms and stuff or you can call our number and what’s the number there George said
8847 eabs that’s 473 9227 and the number in Labrador is okay
anyway hey you know there half hour social Mr Mr social studies man I love it you
always pull out these like locations I’m like where the heck is that places like swasiland you know yeah
yeah it’s where my father always pulled on me you know where swasiland is where the hell is Swaziland it’s surrounded by
South Africa anyway I look it’s I’m and I know I’m right anyway so we’ll be back in just a minute and uh we’ll talk about
standing or sitting so stay right here we’ll be right back voiceover extra the
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extra.com voiceover [Music]
n oh gosh if you only knew what went on during the bumpers here at East West
audio Body Shop we have a great time here guys you guys are having a great
time in in the chat room and we’re having a great time here and Peter oconnell will be joining us in just a
little while and we’ll just make M of him for for like 15 20 minutes good yeah absolutely and uh he’s actually going to
be live in studio you know you get the you get all the big stars in Hollywood I get the big buffalo Stars here and how
do we know he’s not already sitting right next to you Dan well he he he’s here I hear him laughing in the
background wait wait wait whoa whoa okay this is turning into a college
level pod podcast there it goes okay all right anyway we had a question about
can’t remember who asked it maybe we should just take better notes on who sends us these notes but you tell you do
you stand or do you sit Dave Waters it was asks that’s right so which is it
stand up or sit down you see a lot of voice actors standing up in studios but you also see many top actors sitting in
their home Studios like George deoo Ben Patrick Johnson joose siip I do a little of each depending on the project I think
he answered his own question but we’ll elate did all right well all right well let let let’s do you know let’s do an
actual visual uh visual aid here why don’t we this is this is when I actually move the camera a little bit go yeah
let’s see if I see what’s going on okay here we are in the black hole
of and here’s my microphone and here’s how I read my material I generally do
can you hear me okay in there yeah we still hear you fine oh okay all right generally I do most of my work standing
up uh why is that with a lot of people it was like people who had to wear
headphones it’s a habit it’s how my my first job in radio we stood and because
we were announcers so it can cause a bit of a problem but I generally will stand
because I got my copy right here you know I I’ll be I’ll be working at my screen over here and I turn around my
mic is right here and I can I can talk and I’ve learned it it gives me room to
move my arms I am an actor not an engineer and I’m not on the radio so it
gives me the freedom to really you know to do the ballet that I do while I’m you know while I’m working now if I was
sitting now if you’re sitting uh sometimes it helps uh to be um let me
just straighten the camera out a little bit here that a better shot all
right okay perfect though thank you three quter rule
uh when I’m sitting if you’re sitting and you’re and you’re reading copy sometimes I find that it can be much
more relaxing to do it that way sometimes I’m thinking like it’s it’s like all right you like say the copy is
like um you’re a guy you’d like to have a beer with so you think there go you if
I’m sitting in a bar and I’m talking to somebody about something like that do you know you have you ever had
hemorrhoids you know something along those lines and and it you got it it’s how you
sound real I mean you can do it sitting down and some it really depends on well
a couple of factors it depends on what’s the mood of the spot what are the specs something along those lines uh and uh
also it depends on the Acoustics in your studio because the Acoustics at my mic
back here are dead silent there’s no reflection in there at all maybe it’s a little too dead but you know you can
always you can always change that using you know a number of different methods but I generally don’t better to be to
dead than a little too bouncy that’s true now it’s it’s fairly Lively over here if I’m look if I had my screen you
know my you know my my computer screen is right here it’s it’s over here where my hand
is um and so I could I could you know I could do my work doing you know standing
staring up my screen but it sounds different it’s there’s a hard surface here called an iMac and it tends to
bounce off of that so I’m generally pretty careful about not doing that it’s just I get up I do it I’ve learned how
to relax when I stand up sometimes when you stand up it tends to support your diaphragm a little bit more and you tend
to get a little louder MH you know there’s that I must have some you know something in my DNA says talk a little
bit louder I I I have a few theories on why people stand or sit one they stand
because you you there’s obvious benefits to standing we definitely agree on that acting is mostly done standing you know
it’s just there’s a reason for that um but um for sitting I think there’s two
big reasons why people will do it and one is because I think they a lot of people that sit do it because they came from Radio yeah and I know you came from
Radio too but you had a lot of distance between your radio career and your voice career I think it seems that a lot of
those people came from radio and they have the years of practice training just
doing it that they can pretty much do what they need to do sitting I I think it’s just practice um the other thing is
if it’s really long copy man long form stuff really long form narration can be tiring now you you do a lot of long form
narration but still do it standing right Dan I I I did the entire Bible standing yeah so not all at once thank God yeah
that’s pretty impressive I mean you know a lot of people will sit when it’s very longw form but I guess you could also sit if you’re doing something that needs
to sound like you’re sitting I mean where you’re like extremely relaxed you
know it could be you could use it as sort of a a way to enhance your acting technique right absolutely yeah and
that’s and that’s why I do it I mean I’m I’ve learned through all the coaching that I’ve had that you’re an actor get
into it get into the role you know you’re doing The Godfather you know you got to get into the the character a
little bit use your hands you know it’s all part of the it’s all part of it yeah of course then you hear whoosh whoosh
bang as you’re hitting the side of the the thing there anyway I know one of big the big caveat of sitting down besides
you know the if you don’t know how to do it properly is the microphone on the desk um when the mic is sitting on a
desktop stand it often will pick up all sorts of vibration you deal with that uh
it picks up you you get that reflection off the top of the desk surface into the microphone AB or off the computer
monitor so you know if you’re working real close proximity to computer monitors or a desk you almost always
need to use like a diaphrag I’m sorry a dynamic mic something that’s really tight pattern or like a shotgun mic but
I rarely find a situation where you can use a nice rich sounding you know Studio condenser right down over top of a desk
in front of a screen it’s really difficult it’s you know I had a client that you know that I was working with last week and you know he was having a
real bad buzzing problem but he uh we solved that with a new mic cable and
then it still sounded kind of booty I said are you on a hard surface and he you know he sent me some pictures of it un like son of a gun he had it sitting
on a desk stand on this desk I said get it off the desk get a boom get it above
there suddenly his little closet sounded better than Ed Victor’s whisper room so
amazing isn’t it it totally totally changed the way that worked yeah okay
now we had another question this week have you got this package ready uh for everybody here I believe that I do okay
well we had a question how do we do East West audio Body Shop you know it’s it’s
a very sophisticated and Hightech show that we do here uh so you know next week
I think maybe we’ll show how you do it from your end but let’s show how it happens from from the East Coast on East
Shop well um I’m working on the east west audio body shop so um uh well
actually you know no this is really real we’re just using computer generated technology to make it seem like he’s
actually Alive by making and move and speak and the way he speaks he we use a
um a real time voice synthesizer so we’ll make him say something like hi I’m
Dan Leonard in the East hi I’m Dan Leonard in the East
there we go that’s how it works here oh the hardest part was definitely making the
mustache that’s brilliant man yeah well you know it takes a lot of work to pull
off the show I mean how much do we have to pay we have to pay your son in popcorn and uh popcorn bird seed you’ll
notice that his bird is with him all the time Conrad the Conor and um you know I
mean the kids down here all the time I figure you know might as well put him to work you know you got homework no okay
I’m putting you to work so uh anyway that’s how it’s done here in the east no
we’ll try to we’ll get we’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll feed you little bits here and there but uh yeah it’s there’s a a lot
that goes into no matter how silly the show is and how halfhazard it can seem at times there’s a lot of bits and
pieces behind the scene to make this work which I spent probably two months
of experimenting and researching here and on and off to try to make this show seamless as possible which we’ve pretty
much got it after about after what we’re not this is episode 23 so we’re starting
to get there now but uh you know just stay tuned we’ll start giving you guys a
little more detail over time as to as to just just a little bit little bits here and there a little bits here and there
we don’t want to bore everybody or you know go into too much but just know that all the audio is being mixed in a real
honest to goodness mixing console you know it’s not in some software thingy it’s a real board with sliders you know
it’s to me it’s the only way to do it and make myself sane so that’s a big part of it that’s right well you know
that’s right anyway well we’re going to take another break here and and uh when we return one of our best buddies is
going to be in the uh our show tonight Peter oconnell will be joining us live here in the black hole of Kolkata here
on East West audio body shop so stay tuned we’ll be right back voiceover Industries online news education and
Resource Center 24/7 hundreds probably thousands of free how-to articles for voiceover success ranging from home
studio to voice acting to business a free voiceover industry director hi yeah it’s me the home studio Master you know
there’s no question that if you’re new to having a home studio it seems like an overwhelming amount of stuff to learn
where do you put your studio how do you set it up and even more challenging how do you use it well here’s a good place
to start starting November 3rd join me for a series of three fun webinars home
studio Basics 101 102 and 103 home Studio 101 on Thursday November
3rd we’ll talk about barebones Basics what you really need in home studio 102 on Thursday November 17th we’ll talk
about how Acoustics is everything almost and with home studio 103 on Thursday
December 1st we’ll talk about basic recording and editing each webinar is just $29.95 but you can join the entire
series which includes recordings for just 7985 which will save you 10 bucks
during these webinars we’ll dispel common myths talk about how 90% of your home studio sound has to do with
Acoustics learn what’s really happening when you record audio on your computer and the factors that can cause problems
that’s home studio Basics 101 102 and 103 live Wednesday November 3rd and 17th
and Wednesday December 1st all at 9:00 p.m. Eastern 6 p.m. Pacific to
register but it isn’t always
perfect anyway if if you want to go to the webinar go to voiceover
extra.com with an X not with the E and there’s a there’s a link there that’ll get you to it’ll be in the show Notes
too thanks and it shall be in the show notes anyway we got a special guest with
us tonight and uh he’s he’s he’s he’s one of those guys that you know that
there are places where they have Gatherings of of of of VoiceOver folks cities where there are people get
together up in Toronto we have our friends they get together every other month well my my next guest and I have
our own little thing we get together for coffee once every two years and uh so
but I’d like to invite him in to the east west audio Body Studio here just pick the chair up and just I don’t want
to break anything that’s okay it’s kind of tight in it’s been broken before all right let’s get a little bit deeper in
here guys this is like the state monkey don’t knock that over from the love of God
jeez marks movie here okay all right see slip yourself
wouldn’t it just be better if I sat on your lap no wait a minute that wouldn’t be better that would be bad I’ll tell you what I’m just gonna move the camera
you go there we go access cable works better hi guys works that’ll
work all right right Peter o Connell everybody now you
know look at this picture yeah I I got it I got it don’t worry I’m ring it me
just adjust the camera a little bit more there you go you know where’s uh is this the seat Diane Meritt had him it is wow
wow still feel the vibe yes anyway good stuff now now you’re you’re you’re
you’ve been in the voice business a long time I actually 1982 1982 almost as long as me well I’m not quite the old jeez
that’s true you worked with Moses as I recall I did I literally did it was the voice of Moses that’s right
um you know and the voice of God that’s right which really helps on a lot of radio spots but um anyway now you’ve
been doing this for a while how did you drift into doing doing it at
home uh everyone else threw me out had no choice get out um no
basically it it’s something that evolved I when I started in radio and pardon my laryngitis which is great for a voice
voice overt oh sure is long weekend of of birthday parties for children but um the not doing them having them for my
kids I don’t actually work birthday parties anymore um but uh basically the
way it worked was I was doing um when I came out of radio I I got involved in video production and I owned a video
production company for six or seven years and just kept going through their clients who want me to do work for them
um and I would you know I would obviously do work for them and then I got spots and occasional work like that but that time you couldn’t buy uh
equipment for under like1 $20,000 I mean it was pretty you know crazy expensive and I went no thanks and then uh but I
kept working with Studios and not as much uh Regional stuff or outof state stuff it was more local stuff uh and
then some some stuff would be done locally and get pushed out elsewhere um but then uh then with the Advent of um
of computers and audio technology in the past seven years probably but probably 10 years years 10 years or so um it just
it just blew up and it was it was easy to go from there and then the business went you know grew exponentially so fortunately I had a good I had a good
pedigree I had I had a good experience and it worked out very well for me so I was very fortunate yeah so now now
you’re doing your you’re Consulting with other voice actors you’re teaching you’re coaching oh not a coach not a I
will never call myself a coach but I I call myself a voice voiceover ciliary um
because uh he exactly right you never know when you find the horse head but I’m probably responsible for it um no
because there are a lot of good coaches out there there you know there’s the fres of the world um there’s ree Tobias
of the world etc those folks come to you with with syllabuses and they know what they’re doing and they have everything
worked out when I and I I do one-on-one uh Consulting for folks um voiceover
Talent specifically um based on what their needs are and that’s what I started the voiceover Workshop um which
was about two years ago which because I really got tired to people calling me up and asking me for free advice sounds
real familiar yeah so I’m like okay I’m losing time here this is not smart uh so
I decided Well let’s see if they’ll pay for it and they do uh which is great so
um but I I work one-on-one I don’t do group sessions there are a lot of folks who are much more qualified in the
coaching area but when people work with me in the voiceover Workshop they get to pick the topics uh anything from
performance uh to business management to uh marketing and everything in between
having to do with with with voiceover performance and I go over it and a lot of that also came from when I wrote the
uh the voiceover entrance exam uh a few years ago which was another which was caused by another series of calls of
help me help me help me and I knew these people really shouldn’t be in voice over uh while there some of the people should
be in voice over some of them shouldn’t so I wrote I wrote a book and said you know you need to be honest with yourself
if you’re good enough you’ll know and if you’re not good enough and people keep telling you you’re not good enough you should try something yeah really yeah
I’ve taken that test I’ve gotten a 100 every time oh good you yeah but it’s self-graded that’s why I keep getting
100 interesting to note uh so um actually somebody asked how much does it
cost Peter oh you don’t have that much money uh no kidding no um I work uh for
with two hours some somebody works with me for two hours it’s $200 uh so two hour session uh and we go
over everything I do it by Skype if you like or if you’re in the Western New York area some people come in I’ve had people come in from Rochester and
Syracuse uh and some up from northern Pennsylvania uh to come up to Buffalo so uh and it’s you know it’s it’s it’s a
one time off you can work with me for a long time and I have a lot of those clients as well or you just need to work for you know one session we can do that
too and you guys and and the audience picks the um the audience picks the
syllabus the the client the client picks the syllabus and and we work on just that and and I take them through and
give them everything that I know so that’s fantastic and uh what is the general website where they would most
likely be able to find more information about that uh that would be vo workshop.com which was another thing
that amazed me when I named the thing I was how you call it voiceover Workshop oh that one that domain’s probably been
taken I went to I went to direct nick.com like V Workshop has not been taken so V Workshop it was uh yeah book
that mother right away and uh so V workshop.com which is
tied in with aon.com or you can just give me a call uh at aon.com I’m the same guy so it works out fine anytime of
the day middle of the night no no not so much no no don’t do that small children
don’t do that don’t wake the sleeping maybe me too me too yeah I know yeah Ella knows yeah no my kids keep me up
that’s right small kids small problems big kids yeah big problems that’s right
been getting bigger all the time yes exactly anyway um you now you also have another business you’re also in the public
relations build business or no marketing Mar I’ve had same thing that’s for sure no it’s a part of it I’ve had okono
marketing uh since 1995 which is I think OC marketing.net or ocm kg. net probably
all of them all of them um but uh yeah I’ve been doing that since 1995 and what I that business was started I wrote um
sales and marketing plans for businesses $5 million and less um and so when we
were at fafc con a couple of weeks ago down to Hershey uh our friend Doug derel did a great presentation on advertising
and I just because he asked me to participate a little bit uh in the presentation I said to everybody I said
would you mind telling me by show of hands how many people here have a
written marketing plan and I don’t know if you were in that one if that’s doing eabs at the time yeah ex
you know what you were doing eabs at the time because I remember the appla laws I’m like wait a minute that wasn’t for us um but uh but there was like crickets
as far as who has actually written a marketing plan for their business I did okay see there you go but then that’s
why you’re having some success um and some folks are having success without it but it’s it’s such a simple document you
know so um but it’s it’s about putting it together and it’s about executing it and that’s that’s where the rubber meets
the road with my marketing company so yeah I mean how much how much could you attribute your background in business to
the success of your career now I mean yeah I mean a lot of because you
know it is about well voiceover is a business and the talk about the voiceover entrance exam um that’s what
everybody forgets they like the performance part of it that you know the glamour being behind the microphone and pretending you’re Don BTO and like no
wait a minute you’re G to do that about 10% of your time the rest of it’s going to be developing the business for it you’re going to have to create uh you
know clients and repeat business and introduce yourself and explain yourself to half of your clients you you do what
again I mean it’s all the stuff we we go through all the time as as voiceover talents but new folks don’t quite
understand that as well um and people who’ have never owned a business before that’s that’s a whole another ball of
wax I mean Beyond marketing plans marketing plans is the easiest thing you do when you start up a business um you
know and we have and we have a lot of people who are you getting into the voice business perhaps they’ve been
outplaced M and perhaps they’ve been working for other people all their lives and they’re suddenly they have the
chance to be independent if you don’t have a business plan you’re in big you’re a big dooo now I remember on our
10th anniversary and I was we my wife you know and I were we figured well we’ll just go to nagra Falls and well
we’ll have a we’ll have a nice anniversary but we’re also going to take a legal pad and we’re going to plan out the next five years how romantic that’s
lovely hi honey yeah I got champagne I’ve got a fire brewing and I’ve got a legal
pad she was the one taking the notes though I I bet she was I bet she was I
bet I bet it was no about that but let me tell you something that was probably
you know aside from the rest of the weekend which was wonderful sure uh we were able to plan out very succinctly
the next five years professionally what we were going to do and we both achieved
that which we wanted and that’s a lot of what you’re seeing right now a lot of what I’ve been able to accomplish it was
like I know how many clients I want to get I know how I’m going to try and get them uh what I’m going to specialize in
and and we continue to refine it I mean we we go back and we revisit it okay now what can I do now and you know the home
studio Master is is is a whole business in itself and we had a plan on that and
uh it’s essential to plan properly so I’m glad that you’re showing people how to do this or at least telling them to
do you instruct them on how to how to go about it at all oh yes I do I that’s part of the voice well again it’s part of the voiceover Workshop if somebody
wants to talk just about marketing um then I take them through the whole marketing uh kitten and Kaboodle and how
you do that and how you budget for that and how there’s lots of free things you can do in the world um that you don’t
have to pay for there’s certainly value to spending some money on marketing but don’t have to pay for everything but
budgeting it as part of what Dan is talking about and what George has done for his business and elderado recording
is to say you know we’ve got it we’ve got it we just can’t decide one day you know we need to we need to have pens
with a logo on it why you know what’s the point of it there may be some reason
for it if you’re going to start doing a lot of trade shows Etc but what what is it you need to do that for or you know
your local business paper is giving you this great program to do advertising and and spend $1500 on advertising in in You
Know Your Business Journal is it worthwhile and and the answer may be yes or maybe no I don’t know I mean but you
got to think about it and plan it out that’s the value of planning yeah of course I have the Merit media Productions stop why and but that’s
because we’re we’re co-founders of the Diane Meritt fan club so actually there’s a question from the
chat room um that’s good for for Peter maybe and maybe uh maybe it’s not too detailed um how much of your yearly
budget should be used for marketing and advertising says Susan Bernard hello
Susan how are you we haven’t seen you since Atlanta and um the Heart of Texas exactly um well it how much of your
budget is is dependent upon some of your goals so in the old days my answer
should be 10 or 15% um but it may not be it depends on what your objectives are
and that’s part of the part of the business planning and part of the and part of the marketing plan so I’m not
trying to not give you an answer but to just throw out a number out there would to be to mislead you and I don’t want to
do that either um so I’m sure it varies as you go through your as your business progresses that number is going to
shrink or grow right yeah it is especially on what your objectives are in other words if one of your let’s say
hypothetically one of your goals is to become a radio station Imaging voice um
and there’s just a few thousand out there um but equally as many are radio
stations so if you’re going to Market to radio stations you can do phone calls
you can do uh letters you can do Direct Mail postcards and you’ve got to figure
out which one of those you can afford to do which one of those is going to be the most effective or what mix of those is
going to be able to work for you that’s what you have to look at with every marketing objective and and execution
that you want to do what’s going to be of value to you and and how is it going to work for your business and from there
then you’re going to budget if you’re going to do the printing on your on your uh laser printer or if you’re going to
go to a printer two different cost there two very different cost there uh postage involved in that uh what you’re going to
say how many inks all the you know the colors of inks I mean that stuff can start getting expensive when you go to
professional printing so I mean that’s just one really quick example of how you just can’t say what the percentage is
you know it can be you know could be 2% for Dan it could be 15% for me and both
could be right so yeah no no I was gonna say I think I think uh in my experience my brief
experience it seems like the bigger the company the bigger the percentage of their budget they seem to put in
marketing like once they have a brand they’re trying to maintain absolutely yeah is that true or is that totally
well it it depends on the industry I mean I hate to keep going back to it depends but if you are you know if your
Apple products or um you know if you’re apple sauce two different marketing budgets yeah um you know and and it
depends on where you you say you know bigger companies you know need to keep their brand out there to what audience
if they are a huge um uh widget company they don’t want to Market to Dan and I
so they’re not going to spend a huge marketing budget going public in their marketing they’re going to do some very
targeted industry specific marketing that may actually in the long run be cheaper than it would be for a
nationally consumer-driven company you know businessto business marketing company is going to in some cases spend
more because maybe they have to do a ginormous trade show like CES in which you know people spend millions of
dollars in all from trade Booth to client entertaining to marketing letters
and pens sters you know exactly I mean so it really it really depends absolutely Dan sorry go ahead I
Trump I I was I was going to get into talking a because I know you talk about social media and and when everybody’s
talking about social media it became very clear to me uh you know we were talking to uh to James elberger and
Penny Abshire last week we were talking about voice in the community and stuff like that social networking is part of it but
networking in general seems to be a much bigger piece of moving your career on
than I think most people realize especially in the voice business it was like well we’re all competition I
haven’t found that to be the case what has been your experience with that well there’s three questions there I’ll try and answer them in order um the the
first thing is you’re absolutely correct about the networking and and how social networking ties in social networking is
a component of your marketing plan you have to determine how and where you know talking to your buds about um you know
boy wasn’t that a great football game in your in the voiceover world is great um but it it doesn’t necessarily make for
decent social marketing uh as far as making sure advertising agencies or video production companies find this
terribly interesting and and you’re never sure if if that if that part of your audience uh whether it be generally
and the you know the video production world for example or narrowly in just
video production in the state of Texas uh is actually using that kind of social marketing so you have to kind of have
kind of use that um and then you know just the I forgot the second part what was the second part after that uh
networking is important to yeah networking is that’s right networking is important beyond that there’s the interpersonal networking for example uh
you and I know of a a local group called The Amherst Chamber of Commerce Amhurst New York which is one of the more uh
successful Chambers of Commerce because this area of in this area the sub suburban area has a lot more business
when you look at it and successful higher-end business then actually the downtown Corridor which you think for a big city like Buffalo which is still
relatively top 50 Market um would have so I joined uh for example talk about
your personal inperson networking I think we talked about this once the Amherst Chamber of Commerce to find that after two years of getting involved in
the AM chamber going to events serving on boards you know becoming a part of active part in it I never got any
business out of it I never was able to make a connection with anybody because at the end of the day they didn’t
understand voiceover they it wasn’t a part of their business so they didn’t see a connection so I’ve sense not
stayed a member there it’s nothing against the chamber the chamber is a great organization but when it comes to networking you’ve got to find the right
group uh my friend Mary M mckitrick up in up in Boston um loves the story I
told of uh Bagel marketing wherein is a bagel shop in town where I uh go for
breakfast on occasion and would go there uh very often before kids BK before kids
um and and go there in the morning and see a lot of business people in there and just chat and business would develop
from that um because that was in-person networking I did it because I wanted to get out of my house and out of my studio
and be around people for at least a little part of the day because sometimes you get stuck in basements or you get
stuck inside offices and you don’t see people but the the the secondary outcome that came from that was I got to meet
business people they got to see me in a social setting it was comfortable to talk and conversations happen and that’s
where networking is of value so you really to your point you have to decide and determine take some risks with your
networking whether you go out to Area events or you know industry things if um
for advertising or for marketing or video whatever um to to see if it works
for you try it a couple times you probably got to give it at least three or four different events to go to see if it’s going to work for you and then make
a decision don’t be afraid to you know to cut bait and say this isn’t working for me I don’t I don’t think it is as
long as you’re giving it you know you’re really getting involved and and givers gain it’s not just talking about people
it’s not just talking to people about how great you are there has to be inter interaction you have to ask about people
you have to uh give them the insight to say you know tell me about your business and listen for the love of God listen
because not only a is it polite and they’ll be willing to listen to you but they also May throw out a couple nuggets
where you can go I might be have a solution for that either through my business or through my network and if
you show support for other people’s businesses and networking situations where you’re offering them help um you
know even if it has no Financial benefit for you they will remember you and and it will pay off in the long run you’re
paying it forward all right absolutely well Larry Davis you missed
out Peter gave us some great advice here of course looking for Larry next time
yes I can’t till he’s on but this was this was actually incredibly valuable it thank you thank you Peter don’t sound so
surprised I’m not surprised that’s why that’s why you were that’s why you were only number two and not number five on
the on on the depth chart here but anyway we have one those yeah again now
you have the graphic there George of uh Peter’s business there and how can they get in touch with you again that’s right
here put it right over his face oh did you thank you well you know put it over your face
I would if I could I can’t that’s okay uh for the voiceover Workshop it’s V workshop.com if you’d like to uh catch
me on the phone it’s operators are standing by I was looking over my phone 716 5721 1800 uh that number again never
mind I’m kidding and so you know this is kind of weird you
know as I’m looking into you know at our picture of us here get get rid of the graphic there George uh thing is is that
yeah if we were going like this it would look like we were two cosmonauts on the spa in in you know the space station and
we we’ be just floating here and our hair be floating it’s pretty much what it looks
like we’re not that’s we have gravity anyway Pete thanks for being
with us tonight you’re very welcome thank you for having me oh our pleasure anyway we’ve got some bad audio of the
week coming up in just a couple of minutes and we’ll get ready for that that right after
this El Dorado recording Services Randy Thomas chiming in this is Alex birdie hi
this is Bill Ratner in Los Angeles hi this is Scott Rumble here in y Belinda California hi my name is Rick waserman
hi this is Tom K hi my name is Vanessa Marshall hi my name is Zurich hi I’m Mary mckitrick hi I’m Peter McHugh I was
turned on to George by none other than Don La fontine who always swore by George is absolutely awesome ISDN Source
connect phone patch FTP you name it Georgia set it up it’s really the best thing I’ve ever done for myself myself I
feel free safe Fearless like anything is possible in here unless you like to look
for opportunities to waste time call George and he did all of that long distance over the phone and the internet
I’m very happy with George and I cherish I’ve got my travel kit I got my source connect I’ve got it all going on thanks
to you thanks George you make it
and we’re back here on East West audio Body Shop thanks again to uh Peter oconnell for talking to us a little bit
about marketing and this is you know I think we need to really talk more about industry stuff on the show as far as the
business of VoiceOver I mean our Prime thing is home voiceover Studios but with a home voiceover Studio comes all that
business stuff so we really need to know that and when it comes to knowing what you need in a home studio there’s a
bunch of places you can go but the best one the place where someone has made some wise choices for you is our good
friend Harlen Hogan and voiceover essentials.com where he’s got some
products that he has personally endorsed and personally created like the want a
microphone which we’ve been recommending to people because at the great price point it’s a great microphone and of
course the portab booth Pro and the Porta Porta Booth the port of Boo the
portao pro two which will be coming out soon apparently it’s still a little slow
and slipping slow and slipping slow and shipping sit down it’s the shingles it’s
been affecting the brain a little bit um it’s but they’re they’re going to get it in it’s supposed to be an improvement
over the first one which was really good but he’s also got some other cool stuff I mean you he’s got uh this is the
career resources page I have up here right now oh very good yeah I mean he’s got uh lots of he’s got pop filters he’s
got the microphones he has that voyo voiceover hat which everybody wants mine
you know I played golf in it once and it was but he’s got some other microphones there some just gadgets too I mean he’s
got like you know the Entertainer secret entertainers secret throat spray say
that five times fast the heck is wrong with you guys it’s it’s dry in our
profec studio yes you can you know there’s so many good resources available
on here it’s not just about the toys some of it’s about the education yeah yeah great books in here uh you know
Advanced voiceover career strategies and of course his his great book voice actors guide to recording at home and on
the road so go over to voiceover essentials.com check out with they’ve got over there because chances are if
you need it he probably has it that’s right and thank you har yeah oh always a
thank you to harlon for for supporting us here at East West audio body shop also it’s now time for bad audio of the
week now hopefully you can hear this one now George and I discussed this one earlier in the week and he sent this to
me and I’m like oh I hear what the problem is uh but let’s let’s see if
they can hear this so this one I think is well I think it’s pretty obvious let’s see what you guys
think faster than ever in less than 10 minutes why do we advance Aspirin
because when it comes to pain relief can’t come fast enough that’s why new
bear Advanced aspirin advanc Rel for everyday pain yeah oh boy need some aspirin after
that one now what’s wrong with that well you’ve got now was that a a an
electronically induced Reverb on that or an echo it sounded very much like that was all post effects that you know very
likely that I’m not going to assume that the talent that was recording that actually did it because maybe or is listening but you know um it’s it’s a
misguided thing to think that adding effects is going to be something that’s going to wow you know wow the uh your
perspective client absolutely the the thing is yeah the thing is is that
they’re never going to hire you you unless that’s your business they’re not going to hire you for your production
capability no uh they’re hiring you for your voice now if you get an audition
that calls for something maybe it calls for adding music maybe it says you know there’ll be an echo behind your voice
that little voice in your head should say maybe on this particular audition
I’ll do this because it’ll make it a little bit different from everybody else who’s going to do the same read and not do anything like that right once in a
great while every time I’ve done that when that little voice in my head’s gone off saying add the music or along those
lines I do and uh so and it’s usually
been a very successful strategy but only when the little when the still small voice tells you to do so uh that’s
something that comes with experience knowing when to do that when it’s okay to do that that’s right that’s not for
everybody it’s certainly not the first impression you necessarily want to give if they’re not expecting that from you
ex expecting your production skills um give it to them go for it throw
everything you got at it if you think you know what you’re doing you know what what the heck yeah but 90% of the people
who I see who who watch our show probably less than that all they want is raw voice a lot of you are learning how
to run your home Studios how to record the commercial production side of it and adding other elements is a whole another
science that you can learn and you may have a very great talent for it but you have to learn how to do it right because
if you do it wrong it sounds like that yeah it’s it’s all it’s going to do is distract away from your voice it sound
when I listened to that it sounded like if you cut through all the the the slathered layers of effects it sounded
like she had a pretty clean recording in there right like it sounded Fidelity was very good sounded like it was low noise
so it sound like a lot of things were done right and then they laid all that stuff on top and it just oh
now was that from a workshop I believe that came to us from uh via VIA a
workout group someplace um and uh you know hopefully she gets some feedback
from the workout group participants and uh you know is redirected um and like I
said I’m not going to assume that she did that she might have had somebody help her um that might have been a
musician or been you know some other kind of a producer and thought Oh yeah you know you you’ve got a give it
everything you got to make it sound cool not understanding the voiceover industry so all you know it’s it’s interesting to
note that I’ve been getting more work with my narration demo which is strictly dry voice than with a highly produced
demo probably a good topic of conversation perhaps we need to get a good demo producer on the show some
night and discuss that so and we we know a bunch and certainly know course we
don’t we don’t want to pick favorites because they’re all pretty good anyway
uh and we won’t say who the bad ones are yes we will no we won’t anyway well what else were you g
to do on a Sunday night you know was there baseball on tonight who cares if you’re in New York or Boston you don’t
really care anyway so uh Philly the Philly still in it I don’t
watch I don’t watch sports no Philly’s gone too so pH you know how about Texas
what’s going on we got people from all over what about Vancouver any
I don’t think they must have a baseball team in Vancouver as long as they have a hockey stick they probably do probably
do anyway our thanks to our guest tonight uh Peter oconnell for enlightening us on on on some b good
business practices in voice over and thanks to you George for holding down the fort with the Hydra there out in
Santa Monica you know we’re how what you do it’s you know I I I think if people
are really interested in how we do this show perhaps we need to do a little bit of a webinar on that
so if you’re really interested we’ll we’ll try and we’ll try and come up with
that anyway uh I’m Dan Leonard in the East I’m George Wham out here in the
west and together we are East westo shop have yourself a great week we’ll see you
next Sunday nine o’clock here in the East and PM out here on the West didn’t
want to step in your line everybody have a great week we’ll see you next time here in east west audio
